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Forecast Predicts 488 Percent UK Growth of Full Fibre by 2026

15th September, 2021 (13 Comments)

The FTTH Council Europe has today published their latest forecast for the growth of “full fibre” (FTTP/H/B) based broadband ISP networks across Europe, which predicts that the United Kingdom will see a staggering growth of +488% over the next five years to achieve 25 million homes passed by 2026 (up from 7m by the end of 2021).

ISP Grain Begins Rollout of FTTP Broadband in Newport, Wales

15th September, 2021 (3 Comments)

The city of Newport in South Wales has become the latest area to be targeted by Grain‘s UK rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network. Some of the first streets to benefit in phase one include those around Caerleon Road and Durham Road (e.g. Constance Street, Orchard Street and Stockton Road).

Mobile Operator Lycamobile UK to Invest GBP250m into Growth

15th September, 2021 (4 Comments)

UK-based Lycamobile, which is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) with operations in several countries, has today announced that they’ll invest £250m over the next 3-years in order to “transform” into a “digital service provider delivering diverse, multimedia experiences that put changing consumer expectations first.”

Google’s Grace Hopper Subsea Fibre Cable Lands in Cornwall UK

14th September, 2021 (18 Comments)

Internet giant Google has today announced that their new private subsea fibre optic cable – ‘Grace Hopper‘, which will run between the USA (New York), UK (Bude, Cornwall) and Spain (Bilbao), has landed in South West England. The new cable has enough capacity to carry data at speeds of c.340Tbps (Terabits per second).

Ookla Publish Latest UK 5G Mobile Broadband Speeds for Q1-Q2 2021

14th September, 2021 (5 Comments)

Ookla, which runs Speedtest.net, has today revealed more data about 5G mobile speeds and availability across the UK. Overall, the country delivered average (median) 5G download speeds of 167.38Mbps (15.91Mbps upload), but availability is still low at 10.2% (17.9% on EE, 10.3% on Vodafone, 6.4% on Three UK and 5.4% on O2).

EE Starts UK Deployment of 5G Mobile via the 700MHz Band

14th September, 2021 (15 Comments)

Mobile operator EE (BT) has today announced that they will begin rolling out the new 700MHz band for use on their ultrafast 5G based mobile (mobile broadband) network from October 2021. Redditch, Morecambe and Cramlington will be amongst the first UK towns to benefit from the extra spectrum.

Freedom Fibre Secures Funding Boost for UK Full Fibre Rollout

14th September, 2021 (3 Comments)

Alternative network ISP Freedom Fibre (FF), which started rolling out a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across semi-rural parts of North West England in March 2021, has today accelerated its growth forecast after securing a second major equity injection.

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ISP Swish Fibre and BT Lock Horns Over Fake Fibre Advertising

14th September, 2021 (28 Comments)

Alternative UK ISP Swish Fibre, which is deploying its own Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, has accused BT of trying to censor (via a complaint to the advertising watchdog) its own tongue-in-cheek campaign that attempted to highlight the “misleading practice of promoting speed-sapping copper-mix services as ‘Fibre broadband’.”

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SpaceX Starts General Rollout of Starlink’s Inter Satellite Lasers

14th September, 2021 (4 Comments)

SpaceX has this morning launched another batch of 51 new Starlink ultrafast broadband satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which unlike prior launches are the first to adopt the new v1.5 platform design that includes inter satellite laser links to help boost performance, coverage and reliability.

UK Climbs to 43rd out of 224 Countries for Broadband Speed

14th September, 2021 (3 Comments)

The annual 2021 global speeds report from research firm M-Lab and Cable.co.uk has reported that the United Kingdom delivered an average (mean) broadband ISP download speed of 51.48Mbps (up from 37.82Mbps last year), ranking us 43rd fastest in the world (up from 47th last year, but still down from 34th in 2019).

Vodafone UK Urges Gov to Deploy 5G and Other Digital Tech to Save Planet

14th September, 2021 (13 Comments)

Vodafone UK and WPI Economics have called on the government to help fix the climate by putting the rollout of 5G (mobile broadband), IoT and other digital connectivity at the core of its forthcoming Net Zero strategy – it’s claimed this could reduce the UK’s overall emissions by up to 4% a year (17.4 million tonnes of CO2e).

Q2 2021 Status Update on BT FTTP Broadband Rollout in Wales

13th September, 2021 (3 Comments)

The Welsh Government has issued a Q2 2021 progress update on their £52.5m Phase 2 Superfast Cymru contract with BT (Openreach), which reveals that 20,490 premises (up from 19,919 in Q1 2021 and 15,649 in Q4 2020) have now gained access to the operator’s 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

Grain Extending Full Fibre Broadband to Homes in Leicester UK

13th September, 2021 (12 Comments)

UK ISP Grain has today announced that their ongoing rollout of a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network is being extended to include an unspecified number of homes in the city of Leicester (Leicestershire, England), which has a population of around 360,000.

CityFibre Extend Full Fibre to 20,000 Sheffield Council Homes

13th September, 2021 (0 Comments)

CityFibre’s £115m rollout of a new 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across the South Yorkshire UK city of Sheffield, which started earlier this year, has been given another boost via a deal with the Sheffield City Council. The network will now also be extended to cover 20,000 council homes.

Manufacturing BT Hollow Core Fibre Cable

BT UK Trials Quantum Key Distribution via Hollow Core Fibre Cable

13th September, 2021 (0 Comments)

Telecoms giant BT and Lumenisity, a spin-out from Southampton University, has taken two of their recent developments in the UK and today combined them in order to conduct the “world’s first” trial of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), a method of ultra-secure communications, over hollow core fibre optic cable.

Survey Claims Switching UK Broadband ISP Could Save GBP143 a Year

13th September, 2021 (12 Comments)

A new “nationally representative” survey of 4,478 broadband customers by Which? has claimed that consumers taking packages from the biggest four UK ISPs – Sky Broadband, BT, Virgin Media (VMO2) and TalkTalk – could save up to £143 per year by switching to a different provider. But price isn’t the only consideration.

Full Fibre UK ISP Hyperoptic Set to Miss Broadband Build Target

11th September, 2021 (16 Comments)

Over the past few years’ we’ve seen various alternative broadband providers set out grand ambitions for their “full fibre” (FTTP/B) networks, not least of which was Hyperoptic’s plan to cover 2 million UK premises by the end of 2021. But recent modelling suggests they’ve still got a long way to go.